The highly respected, award winning director Steven Soderbergh whoushered in the indie cinema craze of the 90s with his groundbreakingfilm “Sex, Lies and Videotape” (1988) is a busy bee this year. Justmonths after the award-winning “Erin Brokovich” makes it to video and hissecond book hits stores, as he prepares to remake “Oceans-11,” the 60s ratpack extravaganza, his latest film “Traffic” already begins to clean up withseveral Golden Globe nominations and an Oscar heads-up before it was evenreleased. I wish there was also an award for the most tedious, heavy-handedfilm of the year so that I could cast my vote for “Traffic” — maybe theprestigious wrecking-ball-to-the-gut award. “Traffic” is very often along-winded, slickly produced just say no commercial that would createembarrassing stains on Nancy Reagan’s white Chanel suit.

Steven Gaghan’s script pays not entirely unsuccessful lip service to theidea of complex social issues and a further examination of potentialapproaches to big problems like “the drug problem” (whatever the fuckthat is). But, in the end, “Traffic” seems to go about redemonizing abunch of groups [that] have been working for a really long time at gettingthemselves undemonized (re: people of color, women, queers). The mostobvious example is Soderbergh’s grainy, cross-processed, eye-burningTijuana, shot through yellow filters to represent it’s dirty difference fromthe antiseptic states (shot often through an unflattering, though cleansing,blue filter). My problem is that his use of these different filters is onlyconsistent when south of the border, as if to say that this region is theonly one consistently, irreparably corrupt. I do not wish to attempt anyreconciliation of this kind of Othering with anything else that might go onin the film.

Another big problem for me is that the script suggests that the onlyreal “safe space” in contemporary society is the cuddly space of thetraditional nuclear family a la 1950, mighty patriarch at the helm, notin some far-off-land on an empty quest like Michael Douglas’ drug czarRobert Wakefield was when his daughter became a base-head (by the way:can you get any more canned than that?). When the father comes home tothe family — BIG SURPRISE — things are ok with the wayward daughter. It’sa mess for everyone, but if we can just return return return to thisglorious bygone era, home at five, hi honey, where’s my fucking dinner era(hello! This is NOT ideal) then everything would be ok. See what divergencefrom it creates? Your daughter becomes a crack whore. Does this shit soundfamiliar to anybody? Well it should. We’ve been listening to it the entire election year.

Bringing home the valorization of the virtuous patriarchy, there’s animplied narrative punishment for Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) whodiscovers her husbands line of work is that of drug lord only after hisarrest, gets her bearings and then handles the situation like a truebadass, saving not only her young son from danger, but also the life ofher unborn child (Jones actually played this role pregnant). This isprobably the strongest character in the thing and the suggested endingseems unnecessarily tragic and an awful lot like that very Hollywoodthing to do: punish the woman for her bravery. It’s a fall of Evething. She gains knowledge and must be disciplined for having done so.Play that against the way the film values the patriarchy and I thinkyou’re gonna be pissed, too. Only difference is that the misogynisticnarrative triumph over Ayala occurs off-screen, which is little difference.

Having said all of that, “Traffic” looks really cool (Soderbergh worked asdirector of photography on this film as well — nobody ever does that —it’s amazing) and the story does have its moments. The clever (if notsuccessful) use of color and a documentary style approach to theunfolding of the visual narrative learns from all that Lester, “HardDay’s Night,” type stuff, not to mention the early 90s American indieshit that Soderbergh helped create and comes off very watchable. Thehelicopter shots are to-die-for, as is the way the camera will leave onecharacter at, for example, the border crossing and latch onto another,Truffaut-style, heightening the drama exponentially by doing so.There’s also some great acting. Catherine Zeta Jones and Benicio DelToro, both deliver something like the performances of their careers.Jones is brilliant as Helena Ayala. She is, without a doubt, the mostsympathetic and believable figure in the whole film. You’re really gladto see shit work out for her and, as I said above, I’m really pissedabout her implied fate at the end of the story, no matter how consistentit may be with the often-lame script. Del Toro plays Javier Rodriguez,the earnest cop from Tijuana who’s just trying to get a safe baseballfield for the kids to play in at night. He faces many a moral travailin his quest. Though that sounds boring-as-all-hell, Del Toro (who’sable to add and drop weight like nobody I’ve ever seen!) plays the rolewith such subdued grace that we don’t care how trite the character’smotivations may sound. Too bad Soderbergh can’t bring the brilliant,forward-thinking work he does with these two actors to Gahgan’s uptightscript.

In the final analysis, this is one of those films that’s going to make alot of money, inspire many stylistically, and stir up a lot of shit likethis. There are good reasons to see it, especially the bad reasons Ilisted above (if giving your money to them directly bugs you, wait untilvideo and rent it from an indie retailer). Ultimately, it’s a veryconservative story that’s as slickly produced as Boygeorge Bush’scabinet, but often hollow inside, like Boygeorge Bush’s cabinet.Having made that reference, I’ll go ahead and suggest that “Traffic” isawfully well timed socio-politically — sexy and hip enough to get underthe wire with liberals and knotted together with enough gunplay andthose repugnant “traditional family values” to appeal [to] conservatives. Ipredict this kind of stuff will continue to blossom and become moreobviously conservative as the times do, as we lunge headlong into this mostrecent RAMBO age, this time for the “new republican.” Please pardon mymillennial thinking, I’m a bit on the paranoid side these days. But, in thevery least, “Traffic” will give some happy television producer the“Scarface” impetus needed to create a “Miami Vice” for the new millennium.Anyway, I came away from Steven Soderbergh’s long, preachy film feelingannoyed and in great need of a cigarette and a bump or two of coke (just topick me up).